China soon will impose new export controls on a set of key critical minerals, including antimony, and technology used to process those minerals, the country’s commerce ministry said Aug. 15, according to an unofficial translation. Antimony can be used in the production of certain batteries, weapons and more. The minerals and technology “have a significant impact on national security,” China said, and exports will need a license before they can be shipped abroad. The controls take effect Sept. 15.
New EU guidance released this week offers insight into how the bloc will implement its sweeping new corporate sustainability due diligence rules, including how member states should decide whether traders do enough to collect required supply chain information.
China last week imposed sanctions against U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., for frequently making "remarks and actions that interfere in China's internal affairs and undermine China's sovereignty, security and development interests," China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, according to an unofficial translation. The ministry said it will impose an asset freeze and travel ban on McGovern.
Canadian traders should prepare for increased scrutiny from the country’s customs agents for a range of imports in the coming months, and should consider conducting an “internal compliance review” to make sure they’re complying with all duties and trade laws, Baker McKenzie said in a July 25 client alert.
London-headquartered Business & Human Rights Resource Centre says only four of 10 global perfumers so far have responded to its queries about whether the companies used jasmine sourced from the Al-Gharbia region in Egypt in making their fragrances. The jasmine was allegedly produced using child labor, according to a May 2024 BBC documentary.
The Canadian press noted that Canada is working to convince officials that might serve in a future Trump administration to spare Canadian goods from a global 10% tariff, but former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who recently traveled to Canada, has said Canada won't necessarily be exempted.
Trade ministers from the U.S., the EU, France, Italy, the U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan reiterated that they are committed to revising the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement, monitoring and negotiating functions, and to restoring a fully functioning dispute settlement system by year-end.
The Canadian Industrial Relations Board could reach a decision by Aug. 9 on what types of rail service should continue at Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) in the event of a union-led work stoppage, USDA said in a July 18 report. The agency said CIRB may intervene “to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.” Union members with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, the union representing over 9,000 workers at CN and CPKC, had said in early May that members had voted to strike at both railways over a labor agreement impasse (see 2405060029).
Although some industries may initially have an easier time complying with the EU’s new anti-deforestation rules when they take effect at the start of next year, others may face a learning curve trying to ramp up their due diligence efforts, supply chain sustainability lawyers and advisers said this week. They also warned that EU companies that trade in large volumes of goods subject to the new law likely won’t be able to comply using only a manual due diligence process.
Brazil, the largest exporter of semifinished steel to Mexico after the U.S., won't be subject to the melted and poured restriction the two countries recently announced, the Mexican government disclosed last week. Aluminum cast in Brazil and steel melted and poured there won't be subject to Section 232 tariffs if they are processed in Mexico and exported to the U.S.